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Coral Placement Based on Temperment

As someone just getting started in the reef keeping hobby, I want to make sure I start out right. I'd like to have a mix of many different kinds of corals, but I want to make sure that they will be happy with who they are forced to live by. I look at corals online and I see "temperment" and I want to know just how that should effect placement of that coral in a tank. I know many corals have sweeper tentacles and I'd hate to have one destroyed by placing it too close to another.
I'd like a general "rule of thumb" list to go by of how close I should place one type of coral to another and what kind of coral they would do best next too. The main corals I'm looking to have on this list are:
Zoas
Acros
Acans
Ricordia
Torch
Chalices
Monti
and any other pretty common coral.
I'd also love input on where in the tank everyone's corals do best; ie: acans on the substrate, acros at the top.
Also, once frags grow out and become colonies, I want them to be able to grow pretty close to the coral next to them without that coral killing it so it can take up that space. Right now I have an empty tank just waiting to be filled with your guys' knowledge.

(Lighting plays a big role on placement so let's just use my tank and lighting as a placement guide. I know that what might work in my 46 won't work in someone's 280. My 46 gallon bow front is 20" deep and I have a 36" light with 1 10000K Double-ended HQI metal halide lamp, 2 true Actinic 03 Blue square-pin compact fluorescent lamps, and 2 1 watt Lunar Blue-Moon-Glow 470nm LED lamps [I know it's not the best out there, but it will work])

Most people do not recommend zoas in an SPS tank, zoas are extremely passive aggressive, and will not only wage a chemical war with other corals that you will not visibly see, but they will grow up to and onto SPS corals and kill them by growing over them. Ricordias might do the same to SPS, but I do not think as drastically as the zoas will. Watch out for the torch corals, they will send out sweeper tenticals, possibly a couple of inches long (maybe longer), and kill whatever they touch. I think Acros, Acans, Chalices, and Montis will all do well together, however, all corals will fight if they come into direct contact with one another. Some corals, such as SPS, will sometimes form a DMZ zone between one another with neither growing any further towards the other, kind of a truce, other times one coral will grow into and onto the other coral, slowly killing it as it grows. Of course, by placing the corals far apart when they are small and giving them plenty of room to grow, you can avoid this for awhile. When they do come close to each other, you can begin fragging the corals, cutting them back, so they have more room to grow again, and selling your newly fragged corals to others. Someone else will chime in with a little better advice I am sure! Good luck!

Mixed reefs are not recommended, but are very common. I have all of the above except chalice . Aggressive skimming and running carbon can help the chemical warfare.

Acan's will do just fine on the sand bed. They do grow a little faster when attached to something. On the sandbed they have to grow a base and tissue. When provide with a base they can grow tissue faster.

Monti Caps grow very fast. I have two monti caps that are over 12" across each. They are on top of my rockwork and shadowing the coral beneath. It only took about 8 months for them to double in size. I am giving them up and planning on redoing my aquascaping allowing more room for growth. I am also going to focus more on the zoanthids/acans and give up some of the SPS.

Thanks guys! I do plan on having carbon in my sump because I love the look of zoas and I can't stay away from sps. I'm going to have a "zoa garden" near or on the bottom of the rock work and I'm going to try to place the sps asa far away from them as possible. Ajnweb, thank you for the advie to frag as corals grow closer to each other. Very helpful. : ) I'm going to place a torch coral as far away from he others as possible. Jason, I was just using a "acans grow best on the sad" as an example of a "rule" someone might have. Thank you a ton for the info on the monti though. I love how they look so I will definitely place them on the side of my rockwork so they don't shadow anyone.

I keep my tentacle based LPS all at the bottom of my tank and they are still growing like crazy under my t5s. As I do SPS i will most likely glue them to the top of my rockwork but I do like the idea of keep my LPS unglued so that I can move them if needed. One thing to think about with the torch is that I have a smaller pink one that extends maybe 3in. But my large green colony can easily extend 6in from a polyp. One idea I had for Zoa's in my tank is that I plan do them all on small rock pieces marooned in the sand bed for from my other corals. I only have one large rock piece I am letting them have for my main rock work simply because it will be a very easy one to keep them on.

One idea I had for Zoa's in my tank is that I plan do them all on small rock pieces marooned in the sand bed for from my other corals. I only have one large rock piece I am letting them have for my main rock work simply because it will be a very easy one to keep them on.

Very good advice on keeping things you don't want to spread marooned on their own rock, such as zoanthids, green star polyps, and aggresive encrusting corals such as hydnophora.

Softies emit chemical warfare which is hard to see. Zoanthids, leathers, Palytoas,
A example of this is taking a Toad stool Leather from its common environment in your tank to a external white container such as white Salt bucket during water change. Watch the color of water change from fairly clean to a darker color at a pretty fast rate.

Trying to help everyone to make this hobby as enjoyable as possible without any Drama!Hidden Content